Palomar Mountain Adventure-Day Two | A Day in the Life

Day 2 of our trip is continued! (IF you missed Part One, you can read it HERE!)

We woke up and had another AMAZING breakfast..you know, the kind that clogs your arteries and fills you with immense heartburn? Yeah, it was GOOD.

After breakfast, we packed up and headed back to the trail we had briefly explored the night before. We were going on our very first family hike, so we went prepared. We also each had a walkie talkie from our 72 hour packs so that we could learn how to use them and get some good practice in. The boys got to lead the way on the trail. About every 2 minutes one of the boys would radio in:

“KKKKKkkkk There is poop on the trail ahead. I repeat, there is poop. Mind your step. Over and out.”

Nope, it was never dull with the boys leading the way.

The mountain burned last year, and there were a lot of burned trees along the mountainside.

But what a view, huh? Can you see the ocean?

When we reached the top, it was SUCH a good feeling for all of us. We were the only group to hike the trail that day, instead of driving up to the lookout…

When we were on the observation deck, we were invited by the fire ranger to come up to the top of the tower and get a tour. Some other people got excited and started to follow us, but the ranger said “Sorry folks, just the hikers.” We felt pretty special. We worked for it, after all;)

These are the two rangers that gave us the grand tour, Buck and Ramone. (sorry I failed you Buck!) Great guys. They volunteer to stand up there and keep lookout for fires once a week. While we were up there, a fire actually broke out near Camp Pendleton, so we got to watch the whole process of confirming it, radioing it in and getting coordinates with their special equipment. SO cool. The fire ended up not being serious. 🙂

If you look carefully, you can actually see the islands out on the ocean. Can you spot the casino on the reservation? Pretty weird.

Ah, better. Now you can see the islands.

After we hiked back down the mountain, we drove up to the Palomar Observatory, home of the 200 inch telescope.

We were pretty exhausted from our hike, so we didn’t wait around for the guided tour.

The dome of the observatory is pretty spectacular to see up close, and it is massive.

This is shot from the front steps of the dome. It’s so BIG! Do you see the rainbow?

We had a pretty amazing trip. We arrived back home completely filthy, but energized and refreshed. We really bonded as a family and learned SO much. We’re already planning our next family adventure for October! 😀